


Feel

by UnknownSatellite84



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Loneliness, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Possessive Behavior, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 03:11:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21331315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnknownSatellite84/pseuds/UnknownSatellite84
Summary: Rhys saw the possession in his sharp eyes. He loved it. He didn't love Katagawa, but he sure as hell loved the way Katagawa made him feel. Alive.
Relationships: Katagawa Jr./Rhys (Borderlands)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	Feel

**Author's Note:**

> I'm tired, so apologies if I missed any typos or weird mistakes. :P
> 
> With this one, I wanted to explore a needy Rhys, one who would swoon at Kat's obsession with him. Lonely Rhys with his unhealthy coping mechanisms. That's basically this fic.

Rhys had never seen a man like Katagawa Jr. It wasn’t a compliment exactly, though the other would surely take it as such if he could hear Rhys's thoughts. No, it was the sum of his parts – his anger, his lust, his ruthless efficiency, his intelligence, all paired with a face that was both sharp and soft. Rhys had been sweating under Maliwan’s imposing shadow so far, but the threat was implicit, not explicit. He had to wait, like a mouse in its cage.

He was finally meeting Katagawa for the first time. In the well-lit Atlas office, midday and neon, they exchanged a mostly cordial greeting. Katagawa accepted the glass of wine Rhys poured from a freshly opened bottle. He gave a judgmental sniff, elegant in a way but also loose. Maybe it was the smile, the eyeliner. Rhys had heard that Katagawa, Head of Acquisitions and Mergers, was a party animal. It piqued his curiosity.

Rhys gestured at the bottle. “It’s supposedly two hundred years old… I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s from the Edens. So...it's fancy?” He smiled.

“I see.” Katagawa closed the distance between them. Rhys leaned back with a frown.

“Amazing,” Rhys muttered.

“I know,” Katagawa purred, reaching forward and slipping Rhys’s tie through his fingers, hip up on Rhys’s desk. He sat the wine aside. “You know, I couldn’t _wait_ to meet you.” He gazed down with the calculation of a predator, cold but eager.

Rhys folded his arms, suspicions rising. He didn't like being towered over. “W-what do you want?”

Katagawa’s eyes flickered like a flame. He licked his lips. “You look good enough to eat.”

A shiver. It trickled down Rhys's spine. The rawness he’d noticed in the young man’s eyes couldn’t be ignored any long. “You little monster.”

Katagawa giggled. As he did, he drank more wine. “Perhaps. What do you think of _monsters_?”

An electric blue flashed behind Rhys’s eyelids, a monstrous grin and gold eyes, a wild laughter that echoed down empty hallways. “They’re…" He searched for a word. "Interesting.”

"Hmm... Are they?" It sounded like a flirt. Rhys hadn't intended for the conversation to go this way. Katagawa stroked his hand.

“Get your paws off me.”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you. You’re hot as hell.”

“_Talk_? S-starting to doubt that.”

“Yeah. You got me. More than talk.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“You love it. I can see it in your eyes. They’re blown. You’re flushed. Aroused."

To certain individuals, Rhys was a bad liar. And he hated that. He could talk any greedy capitalist sheep into buying his shares, but the second a wolf made its way through the sheep to him, it stared right into his soul. He couldn’t hide. And when it happened, things spiraled, brain went fuzzy with….desire. Damn it. He felt so alone, empty pangs reverberating through him like a bass drum in a tunnel, reminding him of what he could never have. He'd been alone for so long. Everybody left.

But Katagawa’s look was burning that all away. "Rhys, even if you didn't say it, my own cybernetics are telling me just fine. You're into me.”

“We’re from different companies,” Rhys gave a token protest.

“So?”

“I’m CEO.”

“Are you? Or baby-sitter to your little pets? No one’s gonna know.”

Rhys couldn’t stop staring into those evil eyes. Was he truly considering this? One eyw had an M in it, somehow, yellow at the edges. Was it a glass eye? “What happened to your eye?”

“I wanted to...modify myself. Like you did."

Rhys's heart leapt. He shivered. “And uh... How do I know this isn't an elaborate ruse to kill me?”

“I’m unarmed. You can do whatever tests you want if you don't believe me. I made it through your metal detector, didn't I? I won’t kill you, buddy. That would be very unbeneficial to me.”

Rhys chewed his lip. He missed…something like this. Katagawa wasn’t the same as what he craved...but he _was_ similar. There was that darkness, that yawning pit, but it wasn’t one of agony. It wouldn’t grind up Rhys's heart into little pieces and spread them to the wolves. No, this was safer. He wouldn't fall for this man, but the heat inside made him want other things from him. It was a distorted imitation of what he could’ve had, if only things were different.

It was better than nothing.

Rhys hadn’t felt so thirsty for this in a long time. It was like having electricity in his veins again, a life outside of numbers and emails and complaining staff. Everyone left. Everyone left him alone, and he had nothing. Nobody cared about Rhys, nobody cared about whether he lived or died. Anyone who’d been a friend had left him abandoned in the shadows.

But Katagawa looked at Rhys as if he had no intentions of ever letting Rhys go. An irrational thought, he knew.

Katagawa grinned, grabbing Rhys’s tie and playing with it once more. Rhys let him, only watching nimble fingers playing with the soft material. Katagawa tugged, and Rhys was pulled in, against his chest. Katagawa kissed him, and Rhys let it happen. It wasn’t enough. Rhys needed more, pressing hard into the soft lips before him. He groaned and a gloved hand tangled into his hair and tugged.

The kiss broke. "Fuck."

“Do you like pain? I can make it hurt…”

“Wait…on that…”

People were unknown quantities, and one of those quantities had taught Rhys a valuable lesson. Everyone was out for themselves. At least Katagawa didn’t cower behind a pretense of love and friendship. He’d stated what he wanted. There would be no reason to lie for this.

Rhys could only do the same. “I want to dance first.”

Katagawa’s face was surprised. “Why?" He scoffed. 

“You give me what I want, I give you what you want.”

Katagawa wrapped his arms around Rhys. “Alright, let’s _dance_.” They stepped away from the desk. It only took a moment of fiddling for Rhys to play music.

“You think I’m _interesting_ then?” Katagawa purred, pressing close, breath hot on Rhys's ear. 

“I think you’re more than interesting.”

He swayed, and Katagawa’s hips flushed to his like a magnet. Katagawa didn’t seem to understand it as being anything other than foreplay. Rhys, like any gracious host, conformed. It was better that way. No hiding, and he wasn’t looking for romance, not in a wolf.

“Moreso how?” Katagawa asked. “Do tell.”

“You…” _You make me feel like I haven’t in a long time. I want more._ “You’re beautiful.”

Lips stretched into a grin. They weren’t really dancing at this point, and Katagawa’s grin slid up Rhys’s throat. He nipped. “Be mine.” It wasn’t a question.

Rhys’s body shook slightly, a tremble. “Y-you’ll make it hurt?”

“Anything for you.”

Nobody had ever said that to Rhys before. _Anything for you…. "please."_

“My place…or yours?”

“Mine…"

* * *

It was a need. Rhys was so untouched. He wanted to see and breathe someone else, and that someone else was in his bedroom, eyes glinting in the dim lights. They were bared to each other, and the pressure between their bodies was addicting. The bites and lipping were bonus.

Rhys fell against the sheets, writhing beneath the weight on top of him. Katagawa was a monster, licking and teasing up his body. It made him shiver. It was everything he expected and then some. The little fire in his body burned higher than ever. It wasn’t everything he wanted from the world, but it was so much more than he could’ve hoped. This world of corporations turned out faceless workers who were shades of gray.

Katagawa was a bright teal and orange. May as well have been a rainbow, for all Rhys could find in the tones of overcast skies and old cement.

“I want you, I want you so badly,” Katagawa chanted against his skin, biting his chest, his heart. Rhys pulled him up and dived into his mouth.

Katagawa moaned and bucked his hips in need. Rhys pushed back. Delicious friction lit up his entire body like fireworks. He whined, needing to be touched, needing to feel it all over. Katagawa thrusted down, forcing Rhys deep against the silky sheets. Rhys gasped for oxygen like a drowning man. He was drowning in Katagawa, heart racing for the hills. Rhys held on for dear life and gazed up at the wolf. Sweat dripped down Katagawa's brow, and his hair was loose, eyes dark and hooded.

Katagawa looked good like this. He had tattoos, wrapped around his arms and torso.

_Could I love him?_

It was an idle pass, a helpless thought, a hypothetical scenario Rhys created from desperation. So few people lit up Rhys’s soul, and those few were all varying shades of colors, not the grays. They were very few and far between. It’d been almost a decade since Rhys had felt anything like a connection. Katagawa’s forehead pressed against his, and Rhys felt the connection. Weak, wrong, and distorted, but a connection nevertheless.

“Would you be mine, Rhys?”

As if Katagawa had heard his thoughts.

“W-would I?”

It was a good question, like all of them tonight. Rhys had no answers.

“H-hurt me- You said...you would-hah-“

Katagawa drove harder. All the air fled Rhys’s lungs. Katagawa’s driving force was bruising, his hands tugging along Rhys’s skin and hair, pulling. He bit down, and Rhys cried out. “I’m gonna make you mine, Rhys.” That was going to leave a mark.

“Shit-“

_It feels wrong. It feels right. _

Katagawa ate up Rhys’s heart, swallowing it whole like a serpent, and Rhys let him, shivering with delight. It was liberating. Rhys didn’t care about anything else. It just felt good, good, so good, like drugs-

_Isn’t it better to feel something than nothing?_

Katagawa gave a ragged exhale, choking on the meal that was Rhys. Rhys saw the possession in his sharp eyes. He loved it. He didn't love Katagawa, but he sure as hell loved the way Katagawa made him feel. Alive. Rhys shattered and came together all at once, head thrown back, a throaty moan proclaiming his pleasure. It felt like Katagawa had eaten his mind. Katagawa followed him over the edge, like any true monster.

They slumped, panting, finished. Rhys was drifting, but he felt perfectly imperfect. Human. It was heaven and hell both. He didn't want it any other way.

“Same time tomorrow?” Katagawa asked, cupping his face for a heartbeat - not an expression of tenderness, but a demand for attention.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Good.”

A light, chaste kiss was pressed over Rhys’s lips, as if it were mandatory.

And in a way that Rhys had sort of expected, Katagawa slipped away and left him alone in the dark. It was too quiet. Rhys’s body was clammy against his sheets. He brushed his sweaty hair from his brow as he came back to himself, his soul filling with an unbearable yearning. Along with it, a pale shadow of shame arrived and perched in his heart like a vulture over carrion. Rhys forced himself to move, because he needed to shower and wash it all away. Katagawa was gone now. It'd be like it’d never happened.

At least Katagawa hadn’t tried to kill him.

_Yet._

With warm water cascading over his raw skin, he let himself rejoice that at least he had one thing, a monster to shatter him when he needed it. He wasn’t as alone as he used to be.


End file.
